(This is the second installment in a three-part series looking at the memoir written by the Ethiopian intellectual, freedom fighter and opposition politician, Andargachew Tsige. Find the first part here.)

Andargachew Tsigie’s narrative tells the emergence of Addis Ababa as Ethiopia’s cultural, financial and commercial center, springing from the site chosen by Queen Taytu Bitul in 1886 at the time that Emperor Menelik II was engaged in the campaign to subdue the sultanate of Harar. The Emperor followed his wife, and in 1892 made the still small Addis Ababa his official residence. Packing a tremendous amount of information into its pages, the book recounts the story of the rise of Addis Ababa and the political and cultural upheavals through decades. We come to know the city’s growth from a military encampment to one of the continent’s explosively alive cities through an intimate and moving account. How the Emperor began in 1892 the construction of a palace, which became the central focus of the city and was surrounded by the dwellings of his troops and his innumerable retainers. The Emperor had allocated land to warlords, Rases, and officials. “Some areas are still named after the owners of that time such as Ras Biru, Ras Mulugeta, Ras Hailu, Ras Kassa, Dejazmach Wube, Fitawrari Aba Koran. Large parcels of land were also to be awarded to the church,” Andargachew writes. Foreign legations were situated close to the imperial compound, on the high ground. The founding of Addis Ababa as a new capital allowed the influx of rural people from all regions of the country.

Ras Tafari Makonnen, later Haile Selassie, the progressive nobleman who was crowned emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 engaged in the modernization process of the country and the capital, albeit at a slower speed. He established schools, strengthened the police force, and progressively outlawed feudal taxation. The city started to grow horizontally, with a large variety of slums on land that was occupied both legally and illegally, many of them lacking in infrastructure or quality housing.

The author comments about the effort to develop the city with the monumental plan during the Italian occupation. “Addis Ababa started to transform, albeit very modestly, during the five years after the Italian invasion of 1935. Most of the city’s main roads were paved and asphalt pavements were laid. Numerous residential and office buildings were built in areas such as Kazanchis and Kaza Popolare. In other areas such as Mercato, Piazza, Senga Tera, Arat Kilo and Sidisit Kilo, newer stone buildings were constructed.  The theatres and cinemas like the National Theatre and Cinema Empire were built. Other innovations included the installment of sewerage system at a small scale. It was the Italians who gave the city a modern form and shape. The changes in Addis Ababa between 1941 after Liberation and until the end of the Imperial Period in 1974 were sluggish.” (p. 98).

The abundance of eucalyptus trees, first imported from Australia to supply fuel and construction wood, made the city a forest city, brightened up by green gardens where flowers flourished. Beds of roses, bougainvillea or geraniums boomed, surrounded by rivers and streams rushing down from the nearby mountain. The author laments the loss of so much of the city’s green landscape and garden space amid development and fast-paced housing projects such as condominiums. He particularly makes references to yellow daisies collectively called the meskal flowers that bloom after the rainy season.

In the chapter entitled, “Addis Ababa, a city of soldiers, slaves and prostitutes”, the author provides a backstage version of the history of sex work, with fascinating descriptions of how the concentration of men helped prostitution to flourish in the royal camp. « Since those who founded Addis Ababa were soldiers and military men, most of them were without marriages and homestead, except the army leaders. Event them until they brought their wives to live with them, the place was full of young men, warlords, and army members. For some time, women and children were rare. » (p, 72).

This factor, according to the author, encouraged the proliferation of the “tej and tella bets”, the one-woman bars and drinking places that dispensed drinks and other things at all hours. The prostitution expanded greatly, the continued urbanization extending the trade and reducing its profitability. The increase in part-time or full-time prostitutes, hired or bought servants doubling as sexual partners meant the increase in venereal disease at an alarming rate. The women were deemed debauched deviants who spread venereal diseases to the lords.  However, the divorce and remarriage that were common and frequent were equally responsible for the spread of the diseases. The promiscuous behavior observed then was in stark contrast with the conservative Christain belief and religious teachings, the author observes.